East Enders Wives

We met by chance along the Roe River side

Our salt fire danced as our tea leaves dried

She hatched our plans in the atmospheric tides

Fortune Teller: "Let's give up 'sacrifice' next Lent"

Rabbit: "Eh, that joke's long since been spent!"

But as the Fool on the bagpipes played

We kept cool in the parasol shade

Your thumb on my page at my tender age

East enders wives

Then hidden in the boxthorn vine

We grew old as the foxtail pine

Sheep in the fold gilding our gold

Sipping our milk and water lives

She packed our bags some arbitrary time

(by the time he wakes up I'll be gone)

Then waved like a flag from the White Star Line

(Queensland our next stop, I'll be gone)

Unmoored unwell though I seldom elegize

(you still see who I once was)

We've both been untrue but i'm still counting on you like an invisible rosary

And as the past and our plans are undone,

Slowly sank like the shipwrecked sun

Bridges and boats burning them both

Burned up the sky

Choir sang as the Black Birch fell

Sorrow rang like a church yard bell

An axe to the trees smoke for the bees

All our dads died.